Resilient Voices & Beyond

Power With Purpose, Leadership With Heart

Resilient Voices & Beyond Podcast  Season 3, Episode 57 Title: Power With Purpose, Leadership With Heart This episode does not center leadership as a title. It centers leadership as a transformation. It asks a harder question. What happens when someone who was once navigating survival steps into spaces of influence and refuses to forget where they came from. In this deeply grounded and forward moving conversation, I sit with Nathaniel Williams, a nationally recognized foster care advocate, community leader, and systems disruptor whose life reflects what it means to turn lived experience into disciplined leadership. His story does not begin in rooms of power. It begins in instability, movement, and uncertainty. Eight years in foster care. Multiple placements. Residential treatment. A system that too often defines young people by what they have endured instead of what they are capable of becoming. Nathaniel shifts that narrative. As outlined in the episode structure, this conversation moves intentionally from his lived experience into leadership identity, advocacy, and systems change . It traces the full arc. From entering foster care in 2013 to being adopted at age fourteen. From navigating disruption to graduating high school in 2023. From questioning his place in the world to becoming a voice that now shapes rooms where decisions are made about young people’s lives. This episode carries weight because it refuses to separate pain from purpose. Nathaniel names the moments that shaped him. He speaks to the role of his adoptive father in restoring stability. He speaks to the internal shift that took place when he stopped seeing himself as someone impacted by the system and started recognizing himself as someone equipped to change it. “Power with purpose. Leadership with heart.” This is not a slogan. It is a framework. It defines how Nathaniel approaches every role he holds.  We examine: • What it means to move from survival into leadership without losing empathy • How lived experience sharpens leadership beyond theory and position • The responsibility that comes with being visible to youth still navigating the system • The critical role of belonging, not as a concept, but as a practice • The gaps in foster care that demand peer support, community rooted solutions, and sustained connection • The necessity of centering youth voice in policy, not as consultation but as authority • The tension between systems that move slowly and leaders who have lived the urgency Nathaniel’s leadership extends across local, state, and national levels. From founding the Foster Care Alumni of America Wyoming Chapter to serving on advisory councils and national policy bodies, he operates with clarity. Belonging is not optional. It is foundational. His work reflects that truth. His leadership builds what he needed and ensures the next generation does not have to navigate alone. This conversation also speaks directly to representation. Nathaniel does not shy away from his vision to one day become President of the United States. He names it with conviction because he understands what it represents. Not ambition for recognition. Responsibility for transformation. A future where someone shaped by the child welfare system leads the nation that governs it. That vision matters. We also engage the realities of advocacy. The resistance. The emotional weight. The expectation to carry both story and solution. Nathaniel speaks to staying grounded in purpose while operating in spaces that often question lived expertise. He does not apologize for his voice. He uses it. This episode aligns directly with the broader work of building systems that do not simply manage youth but invest in them. It reflects the core belief that young people from foster care are not problems to solve. They are leaders to support. Nathaniel Williams is the Founder of Foster Care Alumni of America Wyoming Chapter, Founder of Nathaniel Williams for the People, former President of the Wyoming Youth Advisory Council, and a national spokesperson for AdoptUSKids. He serves across multiple advisory bodies and continues to build platforms that center belonging, leadership, and collective advancement.  Ways to Connect with Nathaniel Williams: Instagram: @nate2uwyoming Facebook: Nathaniel Williams LinkedIn: Nathaniel Williams Linktree: https://linktr.ee/officeofnathanielwilliams [https://linktr.ee/officeofnathanielwilliams] Upcoming Work: Book and additional initiatives coming soon This episode is not about potential. It is about proof. It is about what happens when lived experience is not minimized but mobilized. It is about leadership that does not forget the people it represents.  Listen. Reflect. Then act accordingly.

Aging Out Is Not a Graduation. It Is a Test of New Freedoms

This episode confronts a truth that systems continue to avoid naming with clarity. Aging out of foster care does not mark a successful transition into adulthood. It exposes whether the relationships built around a young person were ever real, sustainable, or rooted in accountability. In this deeply intentional and unflinching conversation, I sit with Aiden Abruzzino, a foster care connected advocate and lived experience leader who challenges the very foundation of how systems define permanency, belonging, and support. Together, we move beyond surface level narratives and confront the harm caused by conditional commitment. Too often, adults step into the lives of youth in care using the language of family, mentorship, and permanence. Then the system ends, and so do they. This episode names that pattern for what it is. Relational harm. It is not a misunderstanding. It is not a gap. It is a failure of responsibility. As outlined in the episode framework, this conversation centers on relational accountability and examines the emotional and developmental consequences of broken commitments, the difference between intention and sustained presence, and what ethical responsibility demands when you choose to enter a young person’s life.  Aiden brings both lived experience and professional discipline into this space. They speak to the reality of aging out without consistent support, the erosion of trust that follows repeated relational withdrawal, and the internal recalibration youth must make when the people who promised to stay disappear. They name the truth that many avoid. Independence without connection is not freedom. It is isolation dressed up as success. This episode also interrogates systems. It challenges policymakers, practitioners, and communities to move beyond performative care. It calls for a redefinition of permanency that extends beyond placement and paperwork into lifelong relational commitment. It demands that adults understand the weight of the roles they step into and the consequences of stepping out.  We examine:  • The harm of conditional commitment and relational inconsistency • The psychological and emotional impact of broken promises on youth • The difference between intention and true relational accountability • The ethical responsibility of adults beyond age eighteen • The role of chosen family and community rooted permanence • The systemic failure to provide sustained aftercare and relational continuity • The necessity of lived experience leadership in shaping policy and practice Aiden also speaks powerfully to identity, particularly for LGBTQIA plus youth navigating systems that often fail to affirm both safety and selfhood. They challenge communities to create spaces where young people are not tolerated but fully seen, valued, and protected. This conversation directly supports the Resilient Voices & Beyond Fellowship Capstone Project by creating a protected space for truth telling, centering lived expertise as authority, and modeling a healing centered dialogue that refuses exploitation while demanding accountability. Aiden Abruzzino is a community builder and systems change advocate committed to redefining belonging through chosen family and collective care. As the creator of The Family We Find, they are actively building what systems failed to provide. Real connection. Real accountability. Real permanence. Ways to Connect with Aiden Abruzzino: https://linktr.ee/Aidenpssa [https://linktr.ee/Aidenpssa] This episode is not comfortable. It is necessary. It does not ask for sympathy. It demands responsibility. If you have ever stepped into the life of a young person in care, this conversation is for you. If you have ever experienced the silence that follows broken promises, this conversation is for you. And if you claim to be part of a system that serves youth, this conversation holds a mirror you cannot ignore.

After the Storm Is When the Flowers Bloom

This episode stands as a living testament to what it means to survive, to rebuild, and to reclaim identity beyond what systems, statistics, and suffering attempted to define. In this deeply reflective and unfiltered conversation, I sit with Jennifer Tai, MSW, ASW, PPSC, whose life embodies both the weight of trauma and the discipline of healing. Jennifer does not offer a polished narrative. She offers truth. She walks us through her lived experience in foster care, the instability that shaped her early identity, and the internal battles that continued long after she exited the system. She names grief, abuse, loss, and the quiet realities that rarely make it into policy conversations but live in the bodies and minds of those impacted every single day. This conversation moves beyond storytelling into formation. Jennifer articulates how community, higher education, and intentional support systems became anchors in her healing journey. She challenges the deficit-based narratives placed on foster youth and confronts the harm embedded in low expectations, systemic gaps, and performative support structures. Her voice carries both clinical precision and lived authority. As a mental health therapist and foster care alum, she bridges two worlds that often remain disconnected. She brings clarity to trauma-informed care, identity development, and the long-term implications of aging out without sustained support. She speaks to the reality that resilience, while often celebrated, is frequently misunderstood and over-assigned to those who deserved protection, not pressure. The title of this episode is not symbolic. It is earned. After the storm is when the flowers bloom. Not because the storm was necessary, but because growth refused to be denied. This episode addresses: • The intersection of foster care experience and identity formation • The long-term impact of trauma, grief, and systemic instability • The truth about resilience versus survival • The role of higher education as both opportunity and burden for system-impacted youth • Mental health realities behind visible success • The necessity of chosen family, mentorship, and community • The ongoing nature of healing and the discipline it requires • The systemic failures surrounding aging out and lack of extended support Jennifer speaks directly to those still in the storm. She affirms that your current reality does not hold authority over your future trajectory. She grounds hope in lived evidence, not empty language. About the Guest: Jennifer Tai is a clinical social worker, mental health therapist, and former foster youth who integrates lived experience with clinical practice to support foster youth and alumni. Her work centers on trauma-informed care, identity development, and systemic advocacy within higher education and mental health systems. She currently serves at San José State University Counseling and Psychological Services and as a mental health liaison for the Guardian Scholars Program. She also provides trauma-focused therapy in private practice and contributes nationally through advocacy, public speaking, and authorship. Ways to Connect with Jennifer Tai: Instagram: @totallyjenni4ever LinkedIn: Jennifer Tai Facebook: Jennifer Tai Bio and Work: https://bio.site/JenniferTai [https://bio.site/JenniferTai] This episode is not background noise. It is a mirror, a confrontation, and a call to rebuild what systems failed to sustain. If this conversation stirred something in you, sit with it. Reflect. Then move toward what healing requires.

Healing while curating dreams and breaking generational trauma.

Resilient Voices and Beyond Podcast, Season Three, Episode 54. Healing while curating dreams and breaking generational trauma. Guest, Julissa Grozozski Torres, YPA, NYCPS, CRPA, Founder and CEO of Triumph OVA Struggles Advocacy and Consulting LLC. This episode holds space for healing centered conversations and storytelling inside my Foster Healing Fellowship capstone work, and it honors the truth that survival skills keep people alive, and healing skills set people free. Julissa walks listeners through a life shaped by early loss, foster care, adoption, religious control, abuse, psychiatric institutionalization, chronic illness, and the long fight to reclaim identity with intention. She names what it costs to grow up inside systems that label behaviors but ignore pain, and she names what it takes to rebuild a self when other people spent years defining it for you. Julissa breaks down the moment she chose her own name at twelve, and she frames that decision as an act of self definition when life offered her few choices. She speaks with precision about how religious restriction narrowed her sense of self, and how adulthood demanded an intentional return to joy, interests, and personal agency. She also connects lived experience to leadership, and she draws a straight line from survival to service, including how peer work, advocacy, and consulting form a mission rather than a slogan. We confront the systems themselves, foster care, psychiatric institutions, and schools, and we talk plainly about what helped and what harmed. Julissa also speaks on diagnosis, misdiagnosis, neurodivergence, and the exhaustion of living inside an identity built around symptoms, then fighting for clarity that fits reality.  She names cycle breaking motherhood as active work, not a slogan, and she describes the daily labor of building a home where children experience emotional safety, support, structure, and freedom to simply exist as kids. This conversation also tells the truth about boundaries, grief, and letting go. Julissa speaks on the hard decision to release relationships that kept her trapped in old harm patterns, and she names the difference between forgiveness and access.  We close with a grounded charge for anyone who feels buried under labels, trauma, and fatigue, take ownership of your life in small steps, protect your healing, and refuse the lie that your past defines your ceiling.   Connect with Julissa Grozozski Torres. Instagram, triumph_ova_struggles. LinkedIn, Julissa Grozozski Torres. Website, triumphovastruggles.org.

It Can Be Done

🎙️ Episode 53 — “It Can Be Done” Guest: Hery “Eddie” Acosta | Author, Speaker, Youth Advocate Podcast: Resilient Voices & Beyond – A Healing-Centered Conversation Foster Healing Fellowship Capstone Series Episode Description: In this gripping and hope-filled episode titled “It Can Be Done,” host Michael D. Davis-Thomas sits down with author, speaker, and youth advocate Hery “Eddie” Acosta, whose life story is both testimony and blueprint. This is more than an interview—it’s a healing-centered conversation that exposes the cost of trauma, honors the grind of growth, and celebrates the sacred act of becoming whole. Eddie doesn’t sugarcoat survival. From being locked in a closet as a child to navigating cycles of generational pain, Eddie shares how he went from being misunderstood in classrooms to mentoring hundreds of teens every week through his groundbreaking work in Oregon. With 13+ years of hands-on experience in youth programs, Eddie is now the visionary behind Ohana Teen Night, where over 300 teens find refuge, belonging, and possibility every Friday night.  Together, Michael and Eddie explore: * Childhood trauma, behavioral stigma, and how schools often punish pain * Mindset shifts from “why me?” to “watch me” * The messy, nonlinear process of healing—and what real breakthrough looks like * The burden of navigating trauma in Black and Brown communities * What it means to become a diamond in the rough—and why pressure doesn’t always break us * The spiritual, emotional, and cultural power of having a therapist of color * Building youth programming that feels more like family than a facility This episode is part of Michael’s Foster Healing Leadership Fellowship Capstone: Resilient Voices & Beyond: Healing-Centered Conversations and Storytelling, and it holds true to its mission—honoring lived experience as sacred knowledge and creating space for authentic, heart-to-heart reflection. Whether you’re a young person currently in the struggle, a professional seeking to serve better, or someone carrying unspoken wounds of your own—Eddie’s story will remind you: It can be done.  📚 Grab Eddie’s Book: Eddie in the Rough – Becoming a Diamond [https://a.co/d/fGrhlhU] 🌐 Connect with Eddie: Website: speechesbyeddie.com [https://www.speechesbyeddie.com] Instagram: @speeches_by_eddie | @neweddieacosta Facebook: Eddie Acosta [https://www.facebook.com] 🎧 Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, YouTube, and all major platforms. 📢 Support this Healing-Centered Work: Venmo: @MDDTSpeaks | CashApp: $MDDTSpeaksInc | PayPal: MDDT1 Email: mddtspeaks@gmail.com for donations, sponsorships, or collaboration.